To take a necessary amount of a sample such as blood or urine for analysis or testing from a container in which the sample has been collected (a mother sample container) into a test container (a daughter sample container), a sample dispensing apparatus in which a disposable nozzle tip sucks the sample in the mother sample container and discharges the sample to the daughter sample container is known.
An example of known sample dispensing apparatuses is a sample dispensing apparatus described in PTL 1. PTL 1 discloses “a sample dispensing apparatus having a main transfer line for transferring a mother rack containing a sample to be dispensed, a dispensing station which is placed along the main transfer line and which dispenses the sample from one rack to another rack and a daughter rack supply device which supplies a daughter rack holding a container for receiving the sample to be dispensed to the dispensing station, characterized in that the mother rack and the daughter rack treated at the dispensing station are together moved to the main transfer line and transferred, a waiting area where the mother rack and the daughter rack treated at the dispensing station wait before being moved to the main transfer line is provided, a mother rack pathway where the mother rack brought into from the main transfer line is placed and a daughter rack pathway where the daughter rack transferred from the daughter rack supply device is placed are provided at the dispensing station and the mother rack which has passed through the mother rack pathway and the daughter rack which has passed through the daughter rack pathway are aligned in the waiting area”.
In the sample dispensing apparatus of PTL 1, an unused nozzle tip is fitted to a dispensing nozzle provided on a dispensing head, removed from the dispensing nozzle after being used for dispensing a sample and discarded.
In such a sample dispensing apparatus, after a sample in one mother sample container is dispensed to a daughter sample container, the nozzle tip is removed from the dispensing nozzle and is dropped into and collected in a discarding box in order to prevent the sample from contaminating another mother sample container. Then, after the sample treatment of the day, the discarding box is removed from the sample dispensing apparatus and discarded according to the management method of the facility.